Keeping a Secret?
by TodayisAlive
Summary: Ren and Kyouko are married, but are keeping it quiet from all but their closest friends. How will the world respond? Especially those in Kyouko's school, their parents, and friends they've made along the way. And, of course, Shou.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer, not mine. Don't even wish Skip Beat! was mine, I just wish she would update more often…

Hizuri Kyouko found her desk quietly just before the bell rang. She was excited to be in class, especially since she didn't have the time that often, and it had been a while since she had gone. But, she was even more excited about the events that had transpired three days ago. She and Ren had quietly eloped, with only Yashiro san, Moko san, and the president knowing. They knew they couldn't keep it quiet for long, considering they were both publicly wearing their rings, but they would enjoy the silence while it could last. That is why they had each only taken three days off of work and school, to take too long of a break would arouse suspicion.

They knew they could keep it a secret longer if only their didn't wear their rings, but neither could stand the thought of not carrying the proof of their love with them every day, so they had decided to be vague when questioned and quiet when not, and to try to keep things out of the public eye as best they could.

After their short vacation, Kyouko returned to work and to school, and Ren to his work. As she sat at her desk, she tried to concentrate on her studies, but her eyes kept glancing to her left hand, and she couldn't quiet keep a soft smile off of her face. That is, until someone ran in after lunch screaming and crying. "Tsuruga san got married!" she cried.

Kyouko's eyes snapped open "how do they know already?" she wondered. She stayed in her seat and tried to act like she was studying, when she really was listening to every word the gossiping girls were saying.

"WHAT?!" one cried.

"How do you know?!" asked another.

"Look at this!" said the first, as she pulled out her phone. "A picture of him wearing a wedding ring! But he's not saying anything, he just smiles."

"I didn't even know he had a girlfriend…." "I didn't either…."

Kyouko could hear the sadness in their voices and almost laughed out loud at their "love" of a man they had never even met. Kyouko was the only one who knew him, but she certainly wasn't going to announce exactly how well.

Suddenly, Nami, the girl with the phone, walked up to Kyouko, who quickly hid her hands under her desk and tried to act simply curious. "Kyouko san, you are Tsuruga san's kohei, aren't you? What can you tell us? Do you know if he's actually married? Is he even dating anyone?" The questions keep coming, when their finally was a break, all Kyouko replied was that yes, she was his kohei, but that didn't mean she knew anything about his personal life. "Are you sure….?" Nami asked, obviously not convinced.

"Yes!" replied Kyouko a little too fervently.

Nami seemed to have given up, for now, but Kyouko knew she would have to be extra careful. She made sure to keep her left hand under her desk at all times, and turned the diamond of her ring inside when she was in the halls. It might not be enough, but she hoped it would pass.

Her plan almost did work. It was during the last ten minutes of class that she absentmindedly pushed her hair behind her ear with her left hand when she heard Nami cry out across the room, "Kyouko san has a ring too!"

AN: Reviews and comments of any sort are welcome! I love advice so tell me what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

This chapter has more fluff, which the last one was missing, but also gives a bit of background to the previous chapter. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Don't own (Although do we really need to put disclaimers? Does anyone really care?)

That morning:

Tsuruga Ren's eyes slowly opened. He could feel Kyouko nuzzled against his side and glanced down at her, a smile of true happiness on his face. After all this time, after all this waiting, she was finally his. He was the world's happiest man. He gave her a soft kiss and remembered the events of the previous night. He smiled again, remembering that that would now be happening on a quite frequent basis. As much as he would like a morning repeat, today was the day they had decided they would both return to the "real world." And so give quietly got out of bed and took a shower, trying to stay quiet as to not wake her.

He was sitting quietly in the living room reading a new script when he heard her begin to get ready for the day. Soon he saw her walking into the room with a smile on her face. "She looks even more beautiful with bed head," he thought. She walked over to him and gave him a quick good morning kiss.

"Ren, did you eat breakfast?" she asked. She enjoyed living with him now for many reasons, but one of those that she never forgot about was that she could now keep an even closer watch on her husband's eating habits.

"I had some of the leftovers from yesterday's breakfast that you were kind enough to leave in the fridge," he replied. He did appreciate her watching out for him and he didn't wish that she trusted him more, as he was fully aware that he was not worthy of her trust on that matter, but he did wish she wouldn't be as scary. And so he would always make sure to compliment her efforts in hopes that she would soften up.

She smiled, as he knew she would and kissed him again. "I could definitely get used to this," thought Ren, relishing in daily kisses and meals made by Kyouko, just for him. "What are your plans for the day?" he asked her.

"I'm going to school today!" she became very excited very suddenly, and while he was slightly disappointed to see her excited about leaving the solitude they had created for themselves the past couple days, he knew how much the opportunity to go to school meant to her. "How about you?" she asked in reply.

"I just have a short shoot this morning. I really do appreciate Yashiro san making the first day back pretty light. Tomorrow's going to be much busier, but I'll enjoy today."

"Good!" she said with a smile before heading out to get ready for the day.

As he drove her to school, the reviewed the plan that they had agreed upon. Neither of them would confirm anything, neither would they deny anything. They would not show off their rings, or made any statements about them. In short, they would try to act as if nothing had changed. They were not strictly hiding their relationship, but neither were they advertising it. It was what they both felt comfortable with and decided to give it a shot. They knew it wouldn't last forever, but it would at least allow the press to be a bit slower to the front, instead of an immediate takeover of their personal lives.

He then dropped her off at school, a couple of blocks away, so no one would see him, then went to pick up Yashiro.

"Well, well, well, long time no see," was Yashiro's prompt reply as soon as the door had opened. The smugness in his voice was almost palatable. "I'm sure you've been busy the past couple days, but you never even spared five minutes to call me? I'm hurt! But, of course, the last thing I would want to do would be to get between you and Kyouko-san, now that you're finally together, and not just together, married! Oh, I'm so proud of you, that was the happiest day of my…" He stopped suddenly after receiving a sharp glare from Ren. Yashiro knew he had been pushing it, but how often did he get these opportunities to play with Ren. He would take every advantage he could and run with it, that is, until Ren makes him stop.

Once his "fangirling" was complete, he said in a completely serious voice "You know how happy I am for you, right?"

Ren finally smiled at Yashiro, "I know, and thank you. Remember to keep everything quiet, don't talk about it outside of the car, and don't confirm anything."

"I know, I know, I'll be careful," Yashiro smiled, Ren had at least emailed him the plan so he wouldn't blow their cover. And as much as he would have liked to be the one to announce Ren's and Kyouko's happiness to the world, he was even happier helping them with what they wanted. And so he had quickly agreed to follow the plan.

They had arrived at the shoot and parked the car. The second the car doors opened, the conversation switched to the routine topics of schedules and general plans. No one would have though anything was different if they hadn't noticed a ring on a very specific finger of Tsuruga Ren's hand.

They pair quickly walked into the studio and Ren changed into his first outfit for the shoot. As everything he wore would be dictated by the stylist, his ring had to come off. He realized it was the first time he had taken it off since they had gotten married, and he already missed it on his finger. But, he realized it was probably for the best, or else the only thing people would notice in the pictures would be the ring, and not the product, and it was his job to sell the product.

As the morning wore on, it seemed like an average day. Ren would chat with Yashiro between shoots and he took exemplary photographs, and usual. Ren was always a professional and always did his best. At the end of the day, the first thing he did was put his ring back on, it felt good to have it back, that was where it was supposed to be. He changed into his clothes, grabbed his keys, met up with Yashiro and headed out the door, where he was ambushed.

Someone, at some point, must have seen the ring and alerted everybody they could think of. "Well, I guess things are going to get a little noisier than I had hoped," he murmured to Yashiro, who gave a small laugh. They quickly walked to Ren's car, ignore all questions about Ren's potential marriage. "Are you married?" "Who's the lucky girl?" "Since when were you even in a relationship?" The questions were endless. And as hard as he tried, he couldn't stop the smile from spreading to his face. Because while he wanted privacy, he was also so happy, he wanted to shout it from the rooftops. So instead, he smiled, because that's all he could do, and he couldn't do anything less.

And that is how a certain picture could be found on Nami's phone less than thirty minutes later, alerting Kyouko to the possibility that their secret was up, not even one day in.

AN: Next chapter will be back on Kyouko! (And will also probably not be uploaded as quickly, but I will try to be timely! I just had a bunch of ideas in my head that needed to happen tonight… instead of my geomorph readings apparently)

Any and all reviews and comments are welcome, I really appreciate feedback, even if you hate it, just let me know why! Thanks!


	3. Chapter 3

Here's Chapter 3! I hope you guys like it! And thank you so much for all the follows and favorites I've been getting, it's making me really excited! And it also shows how great this crazy little fandom is. Thanks also for the comments, the simply nice ones, and the ones with their own input, I love reading them all!

I don't really have a schedule for when I'm going to update, but I promise to try to keep it fairly often, and I'll let you know if things start coming up and if that is going to be a problem for a while.

Disclaimer? Should I keep doing these? I don't see the point… cause it's rather obvious that I don't have any legal rights to anything, that's the point of fanfiction!

"Kyouko san has a ring too!" Kyouko jumped as she heard Nami cry out across the room. She quickly tried to gather her thoughts and come up with her defense. Their plan would not hold up well in this situation and she wasn't sure if she should stick to it, or just lie outright.

She quickly regained her composure and glanced across the room at Nami, a curious expression on her face. "Screw the plan," she finally decided, "this isn't coming out yet!" She quickly tried to think of various scenarios and stories, and then decided what would work best. All the while, Nami was sauntering over to Kyouko's side of the room.

"Kyouko chan," she said soothingly, "we're friends, right? You would tell me anything, right?"

"Umm, sure," Kyouko replied quietly, pretending to play along, all the while thinking "No, we've barely spoken! We're not friends; stay out of other people's business!" But she knew that that response would only arouse suspicion rather than assuage it.

"That's what I thought," Nami was practically purring now, "So, friend, could you possibly show me that ring I just saw. It looked pretty fancy."

Kyouko put on her best "faerie" face and excitedly pulled her hand out from under the table. She quickly launched into a story about finding the ring in her grandmother's garage, and how it had been left by faeries when she was a child, and now she would pass it on to her own dear granddaughter. She knew that the story was a bit crazy, but she had been known to talk about faeries in class before, and hoped Nami would just take it as another idiosyncratic Kyouko moment.

Nami looked at Kyouko with a confused look for a moment, and then burst out laughing. "Come now, Kyouko chan, faeries aren't real. You know that. So why don't you tell me where you really got that ring."

"But they are real! I met a faerie prince when I was young, this ring must have been left by his grandfather! It's fate!" She of course knew now that her faerie prince Corn was her husband Kuon, but that didn't mean she didn't still believe in faeries a little bit. And the ring was from her "faerie prince, anyway, so really, it was _almost_ a Kyouko-fied version of the truth. She tried to pull all of the childlike wonder that she held inside out at once and have it show on her face.

After another couple moments of silence, Nami laughed again, "You are serious, aren't you? Still believing in faeries at your age… Wow, how dumb can you be?" She laughed again and thought to herself as she walked away, "While I obviously don't believe in faeries, I've heard her talking about them before, so she must still believe in them. How childish. Tsuruga san would never marry a child like that anyway…. I'll still keep an eye out though; you never know… she might know who he's with! She does seem to know him pretty well."

Kyouko sighed as quietly as she could as Nami walked away. She knew it wasn't a great story, but it was the best she could come up with, and she did have a bit of a reputation. At any rate, it seemed to have worked, for the time being, which was really all she was looking for at that point.

The rest of the day passed fairly quickly for Kyouko. While she did miss a lot of school, she really did appreciate the opportunity and the times when she could go, and so she would try to apply herself the best she could. Throughout the day she would occasionally hear murmurs from Nami and her friends across the room, but Kyouko would do the best she could to ignore them. Except for one slightly suspicious look as she passed Nami in the halls, no more was said to her about the ring, or Ren.

At the end of the day she quickly gathered her things as quickly, yet as nonchalantly as possibly. She walked the couple of blocks to the place she and Ren had decided he would pick her up at. She quickly got into the car and heaved a sigh.

"Hey," Ren said quietly, leaning in for a kiss, which Kyouko was more than willing to return. "Long day?" he asked eventually, noting the sigh.

"Probably not as long as yours," Kyouko replied with a smile. Seeing him made all of her worries seem like nothing, she was constantly amazed at how at peace he could make her feel. She gave him another quick kiss before explaining. "Some girls at school saw the pictures of you with your ring on the internet.

"Oh," he replied softly. "I didn't realize that it would reach your school that quickly!"

"Yeah, well, teenage girls are crazy you know," Kyouko said with a bit of a giggle. "I decided I just didn't want to deal with it, and told her a story about faeries, which was almost the truth, since you are my faerie prince," she said, smiling wider now. "I think they decided I was crazy, but at least they won't bother be about it, for a while at least."

"Don't worry about it, no one knows anything for sure. They might have their suspicions, but as long as we don't tell anyone, they don't have any proof! Although, I had though more about dealing with the press, not teenage girls; the press is easy enough to be vague with, your peers are another matter. Maybe we should come up with a different plan?"

"I would like that, it would make going to school so much easier!" They decided they would each think about alternative options for them, and then spent the rest of the ride home discussing their days. As it was the first day apart, they each felt that they needed to hear everything about the other's day.

It was later in the evening when Ren came up with a new solution. Kyouko was cooking dinner, and Ren was "helping." He would try, he really would, but his abysmal cooking talent led him only being allowed to chop of vegetables and help with other easy tasks while Kyouko did the real work. It didn't really matter who did what though, they were just glad to have the time spend in the kitchen together.

All of a sudden, in the middle of preparation, Ren suddenly left, claiming he knew the solution to the problem. He came back a minute later holding something in his hand.

"What are you doing?" asked Kyouko, a little confused.

"Give me your ring," said Ren. It was proof of how much Kyouko trusted her husband that she slowly took her ring off of her finger and gave it to him. He then pulled out a delicate chain, long enough to wear around her neck and to hide under her clothing. He draped it around her neck, and then did the same with his own ring.

"Oh, haha, that's a great idea! Why didn't we think of it sooner?" Kyouko asked, laughing.

"I remembered that these were my mother's. She gave them to me last year, and I never understood why, but I guess she knew what would happen before we did!" he replied, laughing as well.

"I think it's perfect," she said with a smile, reaching up so she could pull her husband down for a kiss. They continued like that for a few minutes, until they could smell the rice starting to burn on the stove. "Oh no!" cried Kyouko, as she rushed to take it off of the burner, while Ren just laughed, watching his sweet wife worry about something that he didn't think mattered. He would trade burned rice for her kisses every night if she would let him.

As he glanced at his own ring around his neck, he realized something he had tried to keep from his mind for a while now. His parents. While they were now communicating more often, they were not always in touch. Kyouko now knew that he and Kyouko "shared" a father, but Hizuri Kuu did not yet know that he had gained a daughter. "That'll be a fun conversation," he thought to himself, "they'll want to know why we haven't told them yet. If the internet knows, they'll surely know by now as well, and they most certainly will know it's Kyouko."

As if on cue, his phone rang, it was the president. "Hello?" asked Ren, confused as to why the president would be calling.

"They know, you're on your own," and that was it. It looked like while they could contain their public image, family was another matter. And it looked like they would be dealing with this situation a little soon than he would have liked. Great.

There you go! I hope you liked it! I'll try to have the next chapter up soonish! Any comments are welcome and appreciated! Also, I'm not totally sure where this is going, so if you have any ideas of what you'd like to see, let me know! Thanks! (haha lots of "!" but I really am excited about this)

A couple of comments had talked about wanting longer chapters, and I'll try! For some reason, my brain is categorizing these into short little segments, but I'll work on it. I doubt they'll ever be long chapters, but maybe just not short?

Someone also asked about ages, and I'm going to say this is near the end of Kyouko's time in school, and while I'm not totally sure on Japanese school systems, I'm going to say she's 18 and he's 22. If anyone has more info on school years I'd love to hear it!

onliafaze – I didn't even think of that, but I thought it made a lot of sense, so I put that in here! Thanks for the idea.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hello again! Thank you all for coming back to read more of my story, it really does mean a lot to me. I also really appreciate the reviews so keep them coming! I especially appreciate the advice; I'm still new to writing and love hearing what I can do to improve, thanks!**

**Also, sorry this chapter took so long to update, but I was having problems figuring out how I wanted it to go and then writing it out, but, finally, here it is! And, once again, if you guys have any ideas I would love to hear them and might use them if I like them!**

Hizuri Kuu was ecstatic to have his son back. While they still were not talking regularly, at least there was some communication. They were finding it difficult to transition into a "regular" family after so much time with so little contact, and so they were taking it slow, getting used to it as they went. Kuu knew his son wasn't used to sharing things with his family and respected the time he needed. Or, at he had respected that space. This was too much.

"This" being his son getting married without so much of a "by the way, Dad." Oh, he could handle not talking about day to day things, not talking about jobs, heck, he could even handle not talking about Kyouko, who was practically a daughter to him, and he was fairly sure a "real" daughter to him now. Nope, that was too much, and now Kuon was going to have to deal with the consequences of keeping secrets.

Kuu wasn't quite sure how to handle the situation yet, but he had known he had to do something the second he saw the rumor on the internet. He might not have lived in Japan for many years, but he still kept up on the popular news, and knew there was no way Kuon was the type of celebrity to pull a stunt like that just to have fun with the press, he was too serious for that, which only meant one thing; he had indeed gotten married. Without telling his parents.

After reading the article entitled "Tsuruga Ren: Secret Marriage?" he sat in his office, fuming. It was then that Julie walked into the room. She noticed quickly that something wasn't right. "What...?" she began to ask her husband, when he quickly pointed to the article still visible on the computer screen. "Oh… Well, that's a bit unexpected," Julie replied lightly.

"Just a little," Kuu huffed, "he barely even told us they were dating! And we had to drag that piece of information out of him too!" That had been the project of four months of picking up small pieces of information, putting them together, and finally not giving the two the option to deny that they were dating, and that conversation had only been a month ago. "They must have been engaged then too…. and decided not to tell us that slightly important piece of information!"

"Let's give them their privacy; they deserve that much at least. Just for a couple more days," Julie's reassuring voice carried across the room as she tried to calm her husband down. She had had her suspicions for a while and, unlike her husband, was not surprised in the slightest at the article. She actually found the whole situation rather humorous. After a few more minutes of discussion, Julie had managed to convince Kuu that it was alright for them to keep to themselves for a while.

"I suppose…" Kuu finally announced, "But, that doesn't mean I can't make them pay for hiding it from us! I think I can have some fun with this!" and he started laughing.

"What are you planning?" Julie asked suspiciously, knowing what her husband was capable of when it came to things like this.

"You'll see; I'm going to call the Boss first though!" Kuu replied, picking up his cell phone and calling Lory.

"Well, hello there, it's been a while hasn't it?" was Lory's answer, in a most annoyingly nonchalant voice.

"It has been a while, but drop the niceties, you've been hiding things haven't you?" asked Kuu calmly.

"I have no idea what you are talking about," Lory responded a little too innocently.

"Uh huh, of course you don't. And I don't suppose it's your fault they didn't tell me, but I will be using you and your information to have fun with them for not telling me."

"Continue; I'm always interested in playing with my favorite couple."

"I need you to call a certain son of mine and tell him that I know, and then help Julie and I make arrangements to come to Japan. We have to congratulate them in person of course! But, I don't want them to know anything, except that we know. I have an idea planned for once I'm there that I'm going to need some help with, but I'll let you know the details later. Just know that they won't get off the hook that easily."

"I like the way you think my friend. I'll call Ren and let him know something's up."

"Thanks, I appreciate it. See you later," Kuu then hung up the phone and started to laugh a bit to himself, "Julie, start packing, we are heading to Japan!"

**I hope you liked it! Let me know what you think! And I know it's a shorter chapter, but this was mainly set-up, so there really wasn't too much to write. Next chapter is going back to more Ren and Kyouko and I hope that it won't take as long as this chapter did!**

**Thanks again for all of the reviews! They really do make me happy!**

**onliafaze – no, you weren't rude, I just thought it was very logical and I hadn't thought of it, so I thought I'd use it, I hope you don't mind!**


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